(nobody knows it, but) he saved me
by sanssa
Summary: Semi-AU. She's got her life separated into 3 parts; beginning, ending, and the dramatic, angst filled shit that comes in between. Because Emma Swan knows; she's a sad, lonely, friendless little orphan; emma/gold


i.

At the dawn of a new century, they meet.

She sits on the roof top of an abandoned library, watching people, half tanked and higher than a kite run down the streets, laughing and falling all over themselves and clinging to one another. She's quiet and reserved and coming down from her high while she watches the first rays of sun peak over the horizon.

She doesn't know why he's here, but she doesn't pick and choose who she shares a roof with, so she quietly ignores him as he limps on over.

"Emma Swan." He drawls, and she looks up. He's as collected as he always is, even on New Year's Day, and he's all half smiles and pressed suits. "Is there a reason why you are currently on my roof top?"

She thinks to bite back; to be an asshole because she can, because he doesn't own the whole damn world just because he's got more money than most in this shithole of a town. She's a smart ass, this she knows without doubt, and she tells him that he doesn't own air space; not even he's that rich.

He chuckles, he hobbles over and she looks away and doesn't help him as he struggles to sit beside her because _she just doesn't care_.

_(Once, he told her that he understood; he lost a son, and she lost her parents and he understands. She told him it wasn't the same, that having someone taken from you is different than them leaving voluntarily. _

_He had smiled, and she's good with people's emotions and what they mean, but she couldn't read him.)_

"I suppose you're right." He murmurs, focuses on the raising run. He doesn't say anything after that, and she relaxes, gradually, resting her head on the bars in front of her; her feet dangling over the edge of the roof.

"Why're you here?" He looks over at her, frowning slightly.

"It _is _my roof, Miss Swan." She scoffs softly, turning back to the sun. It's quiet now; no teens running amuck on the streets, just the birds chirping quietly in the trees.

"Yeah." She snaps. "I heard you the first time."

ii.

She leaves Storybrooke, because she can, because there isn't any over baring parents weighing her down, no Grandmother to do the same.

"Take me with you!" Ruby had said, pacing the length of Emma's (rented) room as Emma packs; packs her clothes and her baby blanket and her favourite pillow. She doesn't need memories. Not from here.

She smiles at Ruby, and Ruby must _know _her smile, because she decides to leave a moment later; with a tight hug and a "never come back here" and she's gone.

Emma catches the first bus out with Boston being her focal point, for now. Her target is Washington, and she tells herself one day she'll get there.

Along the way, she steals a yellow bug and meets a boy in the back seat; falls in love and finds out she's pregnant. With a sense of horrible dread, she knows that this is Gold's kid. The dates add up and she's consumed with a horrible sadness that she hasn't felt in a _long _time.

Neal tells her it's fine; that they can be a family and 'leave the Bonnie and Clyde act behind'. It's wishful thinking, she knows, and she chooses Tallahassee on the map he offers her.

_(His hands are warm and calloused, his breath hot on her stomach – coming out in small, quiet huffs – and she tries to keep her eyes open, to see his face stripped of the smug smirk he always wears, but she fails as he curls a finger inside of her, presses open mouthed kisses to the inside of her thigh)_

Neal is simple. Neal is loud and ragged and sloppy and _boring_. She has two men to compare him too and he's not the worst, but he's not Gold either.

She thinks she might love him; love him because he's the first person besides Ruby and Gold and Madam Mayor who hasn't treated her like she's a fragile doll about to break.

Loves him because they, _they_, are her past and he's her future.

She gives birth in prison, surrounded by barely trained nurses and the sounds of women fighting and her screams filling the room.

The boy is born blue and the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. She thinks that it's better this way; not being able to hold him, to resist the urge to push the nurses away and take the boy into her arms and save him herself.

She holds him once before they take him away - there's a husband and wife waiting for their new son - and she cries as he's taken from her, cries into her pillow in her hospital bed in prison and wishes she could do something _right_ for once in her sad, lonely, pathetic little life.

iii.

She spends three years hunting down Neal; honing her skills and puts it to good use to hunts other assholes down too. After three years, she's lonely and sad and _tired_ and she's so over everything that she can't remember who she's mad at – Neal, for leaving her, for leaving her pregnant and putting her in jail, or… or herself. Hates herself for being so trusting; for being so angry at the world and being alive but not living.

She wills herself to forget him, forget every touch and every kiss and every sweet nothing in her ear, and she hunts down every asshole she can and feels satisfaction for every women waiting at home for a husband that isn't coming home.

She fills her nights with meaningless sex with random men and women who're pretty and chill and willing, and she leaves before the sun rises and drives till she sees the stars.

It's a lonely life when she isn't willing to open up and bond with anyone because she generally sees the worst in people before she sees the best. She doesn't make friends, she hires hotels for the night and leaves town when she's got her bounty.

She made it to Boston. Finally.

_(Are you Emma Swan? Yeah. Who're you? My names Henry, I'm your son)_

"Please don't call the cops. Please – come home with me?" His voice quiver slightly by the end of the sentence, and she frowns;

"Where's home?"

"Storybrooke, Maine."

She's been in Storybrooke for nine weeks and avoided him like he's the plague; but she hears from Ruby and Granny that Gold's getting old – which, you know, _happens_, but getting old in the way that aging brings cynicism – and he's smugger than ever, his eyes everywhere.

She loves Henry, she thinks, more than she thought possible, and with a Mom like her and a Mom like Regina, he doesn't need to know that his father isn't the Fire Fighting Hero she'd made him out to be.

She makes her way to the bar at the edge of the town; her favourite, from before, because it's a run down, hole in the all that you never knew you needed until you tasted their chicken or drank their beer.

She goes there because she knows she won't be disturbed - because the _oh so good_ and pure people of Storybrooke avoid this place to keep up appearances – and walks to the bar and orders their strongest liquor _on the rocks_ before slinking into the back corner booth.

He hobbles over as she takes her first sip of her drink, and she notes that he looks so much more comfortable in his limp, so at ease in his pine stripe suit and gold hilted cane. He sits down across from her without asking if he could, and he crosses his arms on the table and watches her.

"Gold." She says, puts the glass down in front of her. He eyes her, impatiently, his brows set in a slight frown.

"Swan." He bites out, her eyes drupe in annoyance and his frown deepens. He orders water when the barista comes around, and they settle into an awkward silence, watching each other from across the table.

"You followed me here." She says, finally, takes a sip of her drink and reclines back in her seat, watching him closely. "Why?"

"The _boy_." He sneers, gold tooth gleaming. "He's m-"

"You shut your mouth." She hisses, leaning forward, glaring angrily at him. Her eyes dart around the room; everyone going about their business and completely ignoring the two of them. She looks back at him sharply, her lips twitching down in anger. "If you want to talk about this, it's not going to be in a public space. If you haven't noticed, I don't want anyone, especially _the boy_, to know."

"Shall I hire a room in Granny's so we can talk?" He asks, sarcastically, before leaning forward and matching her glare for a glare.

"How about we just go back to your place and have shit out?" She bites back, her eyes narrowing further, and after a moment, his lip twitches and he stands, gesturing for her to get up.

They go back to his house and he's rough and hard and angry but they agree to leaving no marks – no marks because they never did belong to each other.

He thrusts into her and bites the pillow instead of her shoulder and she rips holes in his bed sheets and cums with a scream and he with a soft grunt.

They needed this. It's been eleven years and they _needed _this.

(_She remembers, once, when she was younger, she snuck into Gold's house with a bunch of friends from school. You could say that, that was when it all began – her stupid little love sick crush on Gold, _or_ her push into stealing, taking what she shouldn't have because she _deserves _it. Her friends giggle and shout and run out the house as they hear the rustling of fabric coming down the stairs, and she falls behind and hides under the stairs, watches him go outside and snigger as her friends run off, tries to keep her breathing quite as he makes his way to the kitchen and she tip toes to the door when she thinks she can get away, but his hand wraps around her forearm and he spins her, and she feels like a deer caught in the headlights, but he looks just as shocked as she feels, and his grasp slips, and she bolts for the door._

_He doesn't push charges, and that's where is really starts.) _

Emma's got her hands on Henry's shoulders, and he laughs as she lets him steer her in the direction of the park he wants to go to today. It's one of those rare days that Regina is quiet and has no qualms with Emma taking Henry away for the day, and Emma takes full advantage of it, not letting Henry slip though her hands again.

They round the corner and she almost falls over Henry as he stops suddenly, and she refrains from rolling her eyes when Gold smiles down at him.

"Hello Henry." He murmurs, all snark and self-satisfaction are stripped away, and she battens down the voice in her head saying _maybe, maybe, _maybe.

"Hello Mr Gold." Henry says, quiet and polite.

"Gold." She nods, and his eyes dart up to hers for a moment before looking back down to Henry.

"I-" He stops himself, seems to falter, before he looks back up at her, before giving a small nod. "Enjoy your day."

"Mr Gold is weird." Henry says, finally, as they continue walking.

"I guess you could say that." Emma says with a nod, and Henry grabs her hand as they walk side by side. "You don't like him?"

Henry shrugs, but grins as they finally make it to the park, running over to sit at the bench, opens his book and begins to read. "He's not so bad." He says, distractedly.

Emma nods, sits beside him and crosses her arms over her chest and frowns. "Henry." She murmurs, sits up and turns to face him. He looks up, eyes bright, cheeks flushed from the cold. _He doesn't need to know_, she tells herself, watches the way he watches her, so trustful. "Never mind." She smiles, ruffles his hair, and he shrugs, turns back to his book.

"Okay."

iv.

They meet, once, twice, three times a week and each time it's a little more angry, a little more sad, a little more nostalgic.

She doesn't understand why she comes back, but she thinks it's because, for once, she's doing something for _herself _since returning to this stupid little town with its stupid little people and their stupid little problems.

She's been hollow for a while, she knows, and he fills her up and makes her feel a bit more like a whole person each time.

Each morning he asks "What of Henry?" and each morning she replies "He's none of your concern."

Everyone says that insanity is defined by doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result each time, and each time Gold lies there in his cooling bed with his stony silence as she walks out of his room, she holds onto hope that he'll fight her for it; make her confess everything to everyone because she's tired of the weight on her shoulders.

As suspected, Storybrooke Maine isn't the same after the curse breaks. There's magic in the air and tingling at everyone's forearms – goose bumps forming at the prickle of power. Everyone's forearms except hers; the Saviour, the Princess, the Daughter, the Mother, the Lover, the Angry Little Orphan.

She doesn't go to Gold's house for a week, and when she does, there's a pretty women with pretty brown hair and pretty blue eyes, and they drink and eat dinner and laugh and Belle isn't all that bad, but when Belle's passed out in bed, Gold runs his hands up Emma's back and follows them with light, hot kisses - worships her body for hours and hours before she passes out, exhausted and satisfied.

She wakes the next morning and he says "Emma" into her hair and she sighs "Rumpelstiltskin" into the cold air above her, feels him smirk against the back of her neck and his hands trailing down from her waist to her hip. "Rumpelstiltskin, Rumpelstiltskin, Rumpelstiltskin" she breathes, turns over and presses her lips to his; morning breath and bed hair and sleep stuck in the corner of her eyes.

She crawls out of a well and falls into Henry's arms, hugs her son and cries into his hair because she's _missed him so much. _Of all the times she's missed parents she's never met, for all the times she scorned and cried for Neal in that small little prison cell, for all the times she thought back to a childhood crush, she's never missed and ached for anyone as much as she has for her son.

(_"We need to talk," "Yes," – "Just remind me never to bet against you in the future, Miss Swan" "It's not really a bet when the games rigged, is it?" – "Your scroll, I saw it in your cell; you wrote my name again and again and again." – "You created the curse Gold, you made me the saviour. Everything I've ever done is exactly what you wanted me to do." "I created the curse dearie, but I didn't create you. I merely took advantage of _what you are_")_

She peels off her clothes and winches when they stick to the crusted cuts, hears her joints creak in protest, feels Gold's eyes on her back as she (slowly, painfully) undresses.

His breathe is a whisper against her skin as his hands slide up her back, his thumb working hard against the sore muscles, and she lets out a low moan as he does. His fingers hook around the straps of her bra and he slides them over her shoulders, unclips it and she drops her arms to let it fall to the ground before turning around, looking down at him.

"I-" He starts, watches her, sighs. "I'm glad you're back, Miss Swan." And though is hurts, and she feels is in every bone and muscle in her body, she straddles his legs and grips his shoulders and kisses him, because though she won't admit that she's missed anyone besides Henry, she _did _miss him, and she felt it every night in Fairy Tale Land, every time she fell asleep on the cold hard ground instead of his bed.

She's warm and soft under his hands as he walks her to the shower, and he strips himself of his clothes and proceeds to wash away the dirt and grime from her skin, massages at her aching muscles, makes her moan with feather light touches.

She decides to tell Henry, because she doesn't feel like hiding anything anymore, because she finds herself holding Gold's hand more and more often and because she wakes up and finds him watching her, eyes dark and soft and face framed with his grey and brown hair.

And she's selfish, she knows, for not telling Henry when Gold asked, for waiting until she has feelings for him to decide he's worthy enough to be the father of her son.

She picks Henry up from school early and tells him she's taking him out for lunch, and he smiles big and bright and happy because he's missed her as much as she's missed him.

"Henry-" Gold starts, startled, and Emma smiles at him reassuringly, and he (reluctantly) nods his head before gesturing for them to scoot into the booth. She feels everyone's eyes on her; Henry, Gold, Ruby behind the counter and Granny coming down the stairs.

"Emma?" Henry whispers, and she smiles, places a hand on his shoulder and squeezes for comfort.

"Henry, Gold – Rumpelstiltskin and I have something to tell y-"

"Yeah, I know." Henry smiles with a nod, looking between the two of them. "You guys are dating. Snow explained it to me."

"What?" She and Gold ask together. "Snow _knows_?" She asks him, squinty eyes and frown tugging at her lips.

"Well." Henry starts, matter-of-a-factly, arms crossing over her chest. "Snow says that you're being _obvious _about it. She doesn't know it's Mr Gold, though." And Henry looks over at Gold, who looks just as shocked as she feels, and she looks back at Henry.

"You're really proud of yourself, aren't you?" She questions, huffs quietly to herself before snatching a menu from the table.

"Yep!" Henry grins, and Emma rolls her eyes.

"Miss Swan." Gold drawls, quirking an eye brow. She sobers quickly, and crosses her arms on the table and looks at Henry.

"Henry, we still have something to tell you."

"Hmm?" Henry blinks up at her, then Gold, and then back at her, his lip twitching downwards slightly.

She lets out a sigh, but lets out a small gasp when Gold's hand rests over hers. Henry catches the movement, his eyes darting to their hands, before looking back up at Emma.

"Is something wrong?" He asks quietly, and she shakes her head, no, and he lets out a small puff of air.

"Henry… you remember the story? The story I told you about your father?" Henry eyes her suspiciously, looking over at Gold.

"_Yes_. He was a fire fighter." Emma swallows around the lump in her throat; swallows around the fact that she's about to shatter Henry's imagine of a Hero Father, replace it with the image of a villain; a villain with a limp and a pirate chasing him for revenge.

She feels Gold hand tighten around hers, and it occurs to her that he _understands_ what she's about to do, and she looks over at him and offers a small, tight smile before turning back to Henry.

"I've got a lot of secrets, Henry. And I've made a lot of mistakes in my life, and one of them is giving you up, of course. I regret it every day." She lets out a sigh and pulls her hand from Gold's, and turns towards Henry fully, grabs his hand instead. "And one of those mistakes was lying to you about who your father is."

Henry's frowning now; his little face showing his confusion, and she begins to panic slightly. Henry looks over at Gold slowly, but she watches his face, watches the way his eyes take in everything she's saying.

"You're – _you're _my Dad? And you knew - this _whole time_?"

"No." Gold answers gently. "I found out shortly after your mother came back to town."

The table is quiet for a long moment, and Emma hacks at her cuticles under the table while she waits for him to take it all in.

"So if you two are _together_, does that mean we get to be a family?" She blinks, stares at Henry for a moment, before she smiles and sighs in relief, pulls Henry into her arms and hugs him to her. He lets out a loud laugh and wraps his arms around her and buries his head in her hair, still hesitant and unsure, but happy.

She looks up for a moment, still smiling, and watches Gold watch them, a smile twitching at his lips, and she thinks, yeah. Things are going to be okay.

She has a family.

v.

As always in families, there are complications. There are fights and jealousy and snot nosed bratty little boys growing up and moving into his teen years. There is sarcasm and biting remarks and Emma storming out of the house in the middle of the night, Gold's annoyance and smug smirk and excessive use of _magic. _The fights with Regina on who gets to host Henry's 13th birthday party and if it's okay that they have a real magician come to the party and preform tricks because Gold thinks it's _hilarious. _

But, there are the good things too, like the first time Henry wraps his arms around Gold and tells him he loves him (or the first time Henry calls him Dad – because Gold smiles, and as he turns and walks into the kitchen, Emma sees the tears stinging his eyes), or when Henry and Gold make her breakfast in bed when she wakes up sick one morning, or when they invite Regina over for a family dinner and there isn't a fight, not once, and Henry calls them both Mom and Regina leaves with a serene smile on her face. There's the time that Emma finds out she's pregnant, two months after her 30th birthday (which she spent crowded around by her _family _and friends, then later that night Gold worships her like the Queen he insists she is), that she remembers with pure clarity because Gold's eyes shine with unshed tears and Henry tells her, matter-of-a-factly, that the baby is a boy, and that he'll be the best older brother ever.

She's never been one to believe in Fairy tales or magical solutions or happy endings, and they aren't a normal family – there is True Loves Kiss and magical interventions in this one – but she gives birth to a beautiful green eyed girl and knows that everything, _everything _is going to be alright.


End file.
